Prosecutors in Taiwan have charged five people with setting up a business that uploaded movies to the Internet and then extorted BitTorrent downloaders.
One of them is former ultramarathon runner Kevin Lin, who founded a copyright consulting firm after graduating from law school in 2020.
According to reports, Lin's company tricked users into downloading torrents, tracked their IP addresses, and then filed copyright lawsuits.
Lin, however, has indicated that because of his support for the opposition and his criticism of the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, the investigation against him is politically motivated, according with TorrentFreak.
In May 2021, they uploaded 18 movies from Vie Vision Pictures Co. and Applause Entertainment Ltd, on BitTorrent networks, to entice users to download them.
After recording their IP addresses, Lin's company found their identities from the ISPs and sued them.
The goal was to be achieved out of court. As of August 2021, Lin's company has filed 937 copyright infringement lawsuits.
In 25 of those cases, the company managed to extort $29.207 in “settlements,” FocusTaiwan reports.
